vesuvius and aria

11-7-99
Uncle L named me straight outta the womb: "Dat boy der gonna overflow, like Vesuvius. " I guess I wailed to bring Lord home. My family believes in two things about births: Lord’s spirit is everywhere, and the baby’s name comes from a sign during birth. Uncle was my messenger. Momma asked a week into my life what Vesuvius even meant anyway. L explained the volcano and Pompey and the people captured in stone like peanuts in chocolate. Mom laughed: "nigga, where you learnin nonsense like dat?"
"School," he replied.
"Don’ t clown me!"
Momma gets sensitive about knowledge. She dropped out at 15; reading holds no appeal. My older brother is a symbol for her fork in life’s road. El Dorado arrived due to a youthful indiscretion in a confined space (our minister Reverend Tonio’s language when he came callin). A local drug dealer used to roll by the house, Uncle L said, usually in broad daylight. Gold ride with silver rims, bass shaking glass in the big tinted back window. Twenty years young, sportin chains, a smile full of gold teeth, and a smiley face tattoo on the side of his neck that said LOOKEY HERE. He almost always held a 40 of malt. He’d drive up, she’d come out (she heard the bass three blocks away). They’d drive to the end of Grandma’s little street down to the grove of trees after the dead end sign. Climb into the backseat. All in broad daylight. During school hours, too. Momma skipped school like it was her job. I s’pose you could look at El Dorado as Momma’s diploma – reward for a backseat education.
Don’t think Grandma ever knew. Not for a skinny, boy. If she woulda found out that Momma was skippin, Momma woulda been on lockdown. 24 hour supervision. Grandma had her spies -- neighbor ladies who had days off during the week would stop over the house. Momma had a way of deceiving people. It also doesn’t help that the biggest thug dealer in North Charleston was comin round all the time. The neighbor’s sense of community and loyalty were thrown off. All that church learnin – the being bold in the Holy Ghost talk --- means nuthin in the face of a gun-bearing thug with a ruthless reputation. When Grandma found out that she would be Grandma, on account of Momma showin a belly, she went straight to the neighbors.
Killer, they mumbled, killer. And wiped their brows. Eyes to the ground.
In her rage, all Grandma could add was, " Deadbeat Dad."
Of course her prediction came true: El’s dad stopped comin round soon as Momma showed. Uncle L told me one time when he was really high that Momma cried for days, shut up in her room. When L went to talk sense to her ("he only wanted one thing"), she exploded in his face:
"Nigga, don’t even talk to me. Yo crippled ass givin me advise about men? Please. Don’t you know they’s all kindsa love. It’s not like in the books."
L wanted to say, Not that you ever read any to find out, but that crippled comment cut him. Imagine dat, he said, my own sister clownin on my injury from an accident at the work where most of her money came from. Supportin her ho-ass. Since the accident, L’s been messed up a lot. I s’pose the only benefit of this has been that he spills his guts all the time. History according to L.
Momma -- sixteen, a new baby, skinny and smokin cigarettes – quit school. During her pregnancy, she’d thought it all out. If she was gonna be a mom, then she needed to act like one. She needed a job to support her child; no school could pay for clothes and food. Took a job at Granny’s, an all-you-can-eat up on Rivers Avenue. Manager told her before he hired her that she may have to take a month or two off before the baby came if she got too big. I guess 15 year old black girls with pregnant bellies don’t mix well with Granny’s corporate image.
I showed up two years later. Dad numba 2, same as numba 1 – nowhere to be found. In a sick way, Uncle L has been my father. Not El Dorado’s, though. El doesn’t pay Uncle L no mind. As if Uncle aint even talkin when El done something wrong. No one tells my brother what to do. In biology, we studied how genes tell how you behave as you grow up. In my brother’s case, I believe it’s true. His daddy never owned up, and if he’d been around, we’d never known it. From the stories, El acts just like im – greedy, proud, stubborn, the epitome of a thug.
That’s where my brother and I have always been different. Grandma never had to lecture me; that wanna-be gangsta shit was not for me. El Dorado couldn’t stand this. Ever since I turned 15, he’d been saying, " you ready for the nines! " He’d flash the signal – five fingers on his left hand pointed sideways at four fingers on his right hand held straight up in the air. The look in his eye was this intense beating, a total commitment to the gang and what if stood for. He had become somethin greater. Me against the world; us against the world. Tupac preached that garbage. All the "nines" preached about how real the message was. Just cause death, destruction, and mayhem are real, do ya have to raise them to an artform and create a buncha black jesuses?
He took me for a walk one day in the fall of 91. We need to talk, no bullshit, straight-up, cause we men now. We walked down the sidewalk on Murray Avenue toward Hanahan High. It was cloudier and cooler than usual. I guessed a hurricane was comin. He was crackin his knuckles and fidgetin with his chains, not sayin anything.
Where we goin?Almost there.
When we turned the corner at Yeaman Hall Road, I knew. I stopped dead.
What you stoppin fo?
I’m not into bangin, man. You know this.
Just take a look, and we’ll walk back.
I did. Against my judgement. I knew it was gonna be gang-related. There couldn’t possibly be anything positive in going to the shack. That’s where they met – at night. We crossed the field where the broken down house sat back in a little wood.
We got in through a back window; every other opening was boarded up. Condemned. Place reeked of weed. The nines called it Da House, but is was a concrete slab with four wood walls, two windows, and two doors. Had some technology though. El turned on an industrial construction lamp, some nigga’s initiation prize, he pointed out.
Then he turned to me, his black body shadowed from the light off the lamp. He was gonna talk, but paused, and that’s when I saw the state of that shack: cigarette butts everywhere, empty 40 bottles, spray paint graffiti art on the floor, good colorful stuff. "V, listen here," he finally said," I brought ya here to tell you straight up that a lotta niggas been talkin bout how you need to own up."
"Own up to what?"
"Own up to the guys you grew with," he growled.
"El, I’m not gonna be a black face on the Live Five news."
"Nigga, ya betta start bein what ya is – a Northside Nigga left of the tracks who’s gonna need his click to survive."
Click, I thought. Lotta good the nines’ll do me in anything other than druggin and killin.
I then said, "What do you want from me?"
"Want you to join up. Like every otha nine’s done. Earn yo way."
"How?"
" B and E," he stated as if he were reading something off the grocery list.
So that’s the first step. Nines are known for secrecy, and I’d never really known what the initiation was. Fear shuts your mouth and ears, I guess. Breaking and entering. Sounds like a fun Friday night activity. I pimped El a bit with the obvious: " I gotta steal something?"
"Over a hundred dollars worth." El wasn’t playing; his tone was all business. His face had this menacing shine from the light behind him. He stared me down. He continued: " And if ya get caught, you’re cut loose. On your own. But you won’t. The goods go to the Nines."
"And if I don’t do it?"
"You wanna dis me in front of the crew? I’ll be out. Then they’ll watch me; all the time. If they don’t cap me straight away." He walked to the door. His tone became quieter and pleading, a 180 from his earlier demands.
"Drama, man, please," I said. " Ron and Q aint gonna do nuthin; they wouldn’t let that happen to you."
He turned back toward me, silhouetted in the open door. "You sure been blind, blowin that horn all those years. Member Stevie? Whodya think killed him?"
I watched El’s face –fear. His eyes flared and the muscles of his shoulders knotted up beneath his tank t-shirt.
"Ron. Ron killed im. Cause Stevie tol his gal about Nines, and it got back. They were tight, Ron and Stevie. What do you think they’ll do to a faggot horn blower?" This last line came out like slow motion, emphasis on every word.
"Just cause you’re scared, doesn’t give you any right to try to scare me into your same situation." Everyone in the neighborhood thought I was a sissy cause I stuck with Marching Band past middle school. And not only that, I played the clarinet all the time. Especially in the summer, at night, on the porch. I’d improvise for hours. Good jazz and rhythm stuff that I copied from the Marsalis brothers and Motown classics and even Sinatra stuff (luckily no one knew I was playing white boy music). It was my way to stay out, to follow something other than hate.
El looked at me like a hungry coyote, his tongue half-hangin out. "I was told, V. This is the last chance you have before they come after you themselves."
"This faggot’s goin home," I stated and brushed past him.
"Vesuvius, wait." I turned. He grasped the door jams above his head. His face towards the dirt. This was the first time he’d called me Vesuvius in forever.
"They’ll kill me."
He looked down. His Nikes scuffed the flat dirt.
" I’ll think it over, over a pop tart," I said, smiling inside. He’d said that to me one day last year when I begged him to give me a ride to band practice that I was running late to. I began to walk. I heard something behind me after about six strides. From around the corner, a soft sob. I stopped. It was breathless at times, but consistent. I imagined him sitting on the step, head in hands. In my whole life, that was the first time since we were real little that I’d heard him cry. The walk home that day was a long one – got home after dark, got yelled at for missing a good supper that Grandma cooked.
In bed that night, I thought about stealing. Even about jumping somebody and beating them half to death --- could it be that hard to do once? Just enough to get the thing over with. I played out all these scenarios in my mind of catching innocent people off guard, grabbing them, throwing them in the bushes. Kicking. Stealing. One of the last scenarios I remember coming up with was that I was walking down Remount and I past the AME church. A black bum was sitting on the grass. He was clutching a suitcase. I walked over to him and kicked the suitcase really hard. Said, " Got any money in that, pappy." When he rolled over and looked up at me, his gray beard drooping and eyes watery, he just mouthed words, like a fish on the dock. I walked away, thinking, that broke nigga. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized that the man on the ground was my father I never knew. Which spooked me, but made me laugh more than anything. It’s fitting that I have visions of my dad when thinking about stealing, I chuckled.
Just anotha Northside nigga left of the tracks was the last thought in my head before falling asleep that night.
At 9:30 the next morning I woke to the blare of the lawnmower outside. Uncle L was cutting grass I was supposed to cut. Loud, too early. I went into the bathroom, then got dressed. Went to the kitchen and ate a pop tart. From the porch I saw L finishing up the grass. He kept going over the same lines that he’d already cut. Sweating and jerking around the yard, it was quite the spectacle. Already 84 degrees the TV said. L looked like a rubber doll being pulled by an engine, his legs bouncy and awkward-looking.
" I think ya got that spot, " I yelled. The sun hit my feet as I stepped from the shade of the eave.
L jumped. I’d caught him by surprise. He faced me, but his look focused down the street around my shoulder. He shut the mower off.
" I know this," he said, grabbing the oil-stained towel off the porch rail. He mopped sweat from his face and neck. "I don’t know what I was thinkin – she usually walks by every mornin at nine."
"She?"
" Keesh," he stated.
Keesh was a neighborhood woman, three kids, and now, I guessed, the object of L’s obsession. I stepped fully into the sun. Everything sparkled, enough to make your eyes hurt. Great smell – freshly cut grass.
"So," I said," you think she finds your scent of oil and gas sexy?"
He studied me. " Showin yo true stripes now, aint ya? Wouldn’t be a member of dis famly if ya didn’t tear down on ole L." He swung the mower round, and started for the back of the house.
"L, L man I’m jokin," I shouted. " You know that." I followed him for a few steps, but he just ignored me. He disappeared behind the house.
I decided to walk down to Forest Cove Apts to see what was up, which would be nuthin. It was too late to see people go to work, too early to know on the doors of any of my boys’ places. I was usually still sleeping at 9:45, too.
Grandma’s house was only five houses down from Berkeley Street, which ran beside the parking lot of the apartments. You walked down Harmon, our street, to a grove of trees (Momma’s memory lane). It looked like a dead-end, but as you got into the grove, there was a little dirt road to the left that became Berkeley Street.
Slowly I walked, cause of the heat and humidity. L would say that a nigga could sweat the black right off on a day like that. If only it was that easy, I thought as my shoes hit the pavement of the parking lot. The apartments were in three rows of two-story brick buildings, parking spaces between each building. The green trim and doors made it look natural among the trees around it. Sun pooled on the blacktop, making little spider shadows that bled all over. The lot was nearly empty—a few broken down oldsmolbiles and the two custom Honda Civics that two white kids fixed up at the detailing shop where they work. They parked their rides in their mom’s spots, spent thousands on cheap cars with gold rims, tall spoilers, and loud, bass-bumpin stereo systems. They were inside sleeping off another party.
The black Cadillac rolled into the lot. It started at me as I was standing in the middle of the lot daydreaming. It had tinted windows
and silver rims. El would love to drive that, I thought. It pulled into a spot halfway down building two. New York plates. All we needed—more Yankees. A big woman stepped from the car, her large ankles in heels the first part of her I saw. She wore a flowing black dress, fancy sunglasses, and a floppy hat with a flower in it. Pale skin, especially in comparison to the three layers of make-up. She looked up at the apartments, and then glanced over her shoulder at me, smiling as she smoothed her dress. I musta looked like a lawn jockey, skinny, charcoal-colored boy with gaping mouth, motionless, in the middle of boiling asphalt.
There was an awkward pause; a few seconds of watching each other. Then she said: "Hello."
I looked down. "Ma’am," I replied.
"I guess we’re neighbors," she proclaimed. Her voice was deeper than most women’s I’d heard. She ran her fat fingers through her black hair when she said it.
I nodded, squinted at her because the sun was reflecting off her sunglasses, which made it hard to look her in the face.
"Sure is hot," she said as she walked to the trunk. She opened it and stepped back. "Feel like making a few dollars?" She turned, hands on her wide hips. Her half-penciled eyebrows shot above the thick black rim of the sunglasses.
I shrugged. "Depends."
" I really don’t feel up to carrying all my stuff up those stairs after driving most of the night," she sighed.
"Why you drive all night?" This amazed me – that someone would drive all night and not stop to sleep.
" Less traffic. And to tell the truth, less police. Takes less time," she said. " What do you think? Five dollars for carrying my bags and a few boxes. It’ll take maybe ten minutes."
I eyed her car. It shined in the sun, screamed, "Money!" Couldn’t be that many bags in that car. Five bucks? "Ok," I said.
"Good. I’m Aria." She reached out her pudgy hand; the nails were about a foot long.
"V," I mumbled, trying to avoid touching those nails.
"V as in Vernon?"
"Vesuvius," I stated.
She smiled. " Now that is a name fit for this world." She turned to the trunk, chattering about starting a pile of stuff for me to carry. For the first time in my life, a white person likes my name. I looked around the parking lot. What if my boys see me helping this big white woman? What if El drives by on Berkeley…..then it hit me --- El would assume that I was stealing from her.
I hadn’t thought about B and E since last night. This situation laid out nice for what I felt forced to do – carry in her bags, case the place, get a sense for her expensive stuff. Come back that night, rob her. Get it done. I’d have to wear a mask, long sleeve shirt. Not that it wouldn’t be obvious who I was. What other black teenager knew what I would soon know about her apartment?
Later that night, I stared at the ceiling in bed. This would be the easiest way to do it. Gucci leather bags, jewelry hanging off her neck and arms, and a bag that chinked ---had to be full of jewels. From her bits of babbling when I helped her move (I spent the five bucks at Hardees for dinner), she’d come from a nice place in New York, and wasn’t "accostumed" to not having her own furniture. El had ridden by with some of the Nines about half an hour earlier, goin real slow, music blasting. When Grandma went to shout him down, the crew started chanting V, and then barked like mad dogs. That’s what I want to be when I grow up, a dog. Thought about it most of the night. If I didn’t steal, I guessed El could be in danger from those thugs. If I did, I became a Nine. I compromised with myself that night – I’d break in this one time, give the Nines their trophies, and then figure how to sidestep those boys.
I tried to sleep that night by sayin to myself that B and E was like learnin to swim -- scary the first time, but easier and easier each time you did it. Which wasn’t a good example since I was a one-time offender-to-be. Finally, I got out the clarinet, and blew softly on it for a few minutes, and that calmed me enough to put me to sleep.
---------- ------------------ ---------------------


I walked zombie-like around the apartments the next day. Woke up at 10:30, and her Cadillac wasn’t around in the morning. Still gone at dinner time. For better or worse, I worked a plan: borrow a gun from El so he would know that I was going through with it (unload it before going to the door); right after sundown, if she came back at all that night, I’d go up there and do it ---- steal some of her jewelry and run like hell. Wouldn’t say a word; just go to her closet where I saw her put the bag.
Couldn’t eat much all day. Mostly walked around in the sun and sweated. The clarinet was useless – couldn’t focus enough to get the notes right. The sun rose and fell slowly. Every ten minutes I put up my hands to see if it was setting faster. By dinnertime, I was knotted up. Couldn’t put it off too much longer. Luckily, I hadn’t seen El all day – he was probably busy performing community service for the Nines. At dusk, I started pacing between buildings B and C. Her place was on the second floor in B. Not making myself too obvious, I thought during the twenty or so back and forths under her bedroom window. Black had almost fallen when I heard the first note. A booming woman’s singing voice came down from the second floor. I stopped like a hound with my head crooked to the side, trying to place the sound. You could hear the running water of a shower in between her voice. I never heard anything like the power of that. At first, I thought the voice and the water must’ve been one magical sound, coming from an invisible source. That’s what I thought at the time. Night gathered around as I stared at the white woman’s window. No idea what she was singing – it was foreign, probably Italian. Musta been standing there for ten minutes while she showered and sang her awesome song. And the water shut off. Her song became a hum. And I felt awful and alone. Standing between the buildings, a criminal, a peeper. I’ll never forget that silence – that was truly beautiful. The silence was wonder after that booming, dancing voice hushed. I suppose it was in that feeling of loneliness and all-out amazement that I was born; re-born, I guess. My clarinet never sounded ordinary again to me after that.

Funny how life twists you round. You come out alright after awhile, and for some, it’s a long while. Some, of course, get so twisted up that they suffer, and just pass away. Aria seems like the last way to me. When I heard she’d died a week ago, something in me went away. Just like that. Her daughter’s voice over the phone, dull, almost uncaring: "Mom has this package for you. On her sheet of last wishes she says that you should come down here for her funeral and open the package the day before. Don’t ask me why." It was as if some stranger were informing about a bill I owed. Maria had never been the affectionate daughter Aria woulda liked to have had. I remember her saying that one time when Maria stayed out all night doing God knows what that Maria lacked the capacity to be too affectionate and loving. Now, I’m empty. Like I said, something left me that day. I took a walk on the streets of Brooklyn. I looked up at the lights coming from the apartments that lined ????
People in there, eating meals, watching TV, worrying about tomorrow. And I was there, under her window once again. I was 15 years old. Her voice came up to me from deep, a place I thought memory didn’t recall. It was Italian, or something foreign, and as my step quickened, those tears came fast like an explosion, and I suppose, like an eruption. I’m reminded of that loneliness in the night, and the beauty that filled it, punctured it, and then sent it somewhere inside. On the streets of Brooklyn, Aria resurrected herself, and I still can’t truly figure it.
What about the breaking and entering night? That night I heard Aria sing, I had a real weird time. The singing had been done for probably fifteen minutes. I’m just standing there, in the dark. Something possessed me. After snapping out of the trance, I walked around the building to the parking lot and up the steps to her apartment, B 11. I didn’t even think – just walked right in the door, which was unlocked. Ski mask pulled tightly over my face. She was in the bedroom; the hair dryer was going. I walked through the family room into the bedroom. She stood at her dresser with her back to me, putting on earrings. She only heard me as I entered the doorway, and she jerked around, startled. Until that point, I didn’t even realize that I’d been holding the gun. When she whipped around, the gun got heavy. I pointed at her. The fright in her eyes at first was enough to make me run and run. I shuffled to her closet where she’d put the Gucci bag; reached in to grab it while keeping the gun pointed in her direction.
" I hid it," she stated.
I stood straight. She looked into my eyes. It was then that I realized that she knew things, that I was a stupid-ass kid doing a foolish wrong. The gun began to shake as I matched her look.
" You’re an artist as well as a thief?"
Artist? My eyes asked the question. I wasn’t about to speak, not as if I hadn’t already given myself away with my crappy burglar skills.
" Your hands," she nodded.
I looked at my hand holding the gun. The question was in my eyes.
She continued, " One who is committed to the arts can recognize artistry in another, even in the subtlest things. For a singer, it could be the quality of her speaking voice. A writer, the way he looks at you when you speak, or walk – he listens, absorbs. You strike me as a painter though, because of your hands."
I chuckled at this inside. I suppose I forgot at that moment that I was robbing this woman at gunpoint. " Painter?" I scoffed involuntarily at her comment. My voice came out before I could think to stop it.
" Musician then?"
I watched her. The gun became light all of a sudden, as if it was slipping out of my grasp. It dropped to the floor.
She jumped a little. " Ain’t even loaded," I replied.
" Well then," she sighed, turning off the hair dryer, " this is interesting. Live in the big Apple for 15 years, and never get mugged, and I’m in Charleston all of three days, and I get held up in my own place."
I wanted to run. My feet stuck, my mind fled. I looked down at the carpet. " I knew who you were when I put those eyes together with those wonderful hands. What do you play? "
" Clarinet," I said.
"Ah, ever hear of Miles Davis, or John Coltrane."
I shook my head.
"Who’s your favorite artist? Who do you copy?"
I shuffled my feet. " I don’t know. Marsalis, maybe Sinatra."
"Ole blue eyes," she asked. " You like the orchestra that plays on the Sinatra songs?"
I nodded.
" Why don’t you take the mask off?"
Note to finish this scene: Aria will invite V downtown to a performance by the big band orchestra in town. She will sing a solo with them. He accepts. She gives V a few pieces of jewelry that look expensive, in order to satisfy the Nines, to help him off the hook.
Notes: explain the theft scene; V flies down to Charleston; he goes to the address in Mt. Pleasant; he opens the package; remind readers of Aria’s continued influence in V’s life – she helps him get a full music scholarship to Guilliard, helps him with contacts in the NYC music world; when he plays on his first studio jazz album for wynton marsalis, she sends him a card saying It was only a matter of time; V sees uncle L and momma and ole Grandma – he tells them about El Dorado up in Brooklyn; he goes to see Maria after he plays at the funeral; she is holed up in her mom’s house smoking a joint; He has researched the song that Aria was singing – it is an Italian opera entitled ????? ;
V plays it for Maria, tears streaming down his face, so that he cannot even play; "why are you crying? You barely knew her, " Maria says.
" That’s why. I barely knew her, and she knew me," V replies.
HE returns to Brooklyn, and goes to see El in the rehab center. We’re getting a place together when you’re scheduled to get out in a month, he says. I’ll start looking now. "I don’t deserve this, V," El says. "I don’t deserve you bailing me out like this."
"None of us deserves nothin, brother," V says. " Remember that day you asked me to join the Nines. How scared you were when I said I was goin home to eat a pop tart. That I’d think about it. I know you were scared to death, that you cried. I let you down that day—never again. You getting betta, and I’m gonna help. Just think positive."
El looks out the window. "Am I gonna get my own room?"
"You crazy. We’re gonna need room to breathe," V says.
"You right," El says, breathing in and nodding.
More notes 12-10-99 : As V is leaving the rehab center after inviting El to live with him, El stops him. He requests that V play his trumpet out the window so the people will gather on the street below and look up at the sky. V gets home and gets the trumpet out. He walks to the window; the sky is orange and pink. The street below is busy, but not crowded. He plays, improvises nothing specific that he knows. He will play until the dark falls. From this point on, he will forget the past that needs forgetting. Life will what he can do now; what gifts he has will shine. Night falls completely; he stops. He hears clapping below, scattered laughter. An obnoxious guy yells, " Show yo face, music man." V steps back, puts the trumpet in the case. He walks out into the family room. It is pitch dark. He makes his way to the soft, Salvation Army chair. He sinks into into and stares at the floor. Forget, Forget…….then a voice, swelling, filling his body, a rumbling, and life ceases to exist, if only for that moment.

Please comment on my stories. Feel free to provide critiques and alternative story lines

Comments, please!!!!

Spending the Night with Ted Bundy

Spending the night with Ted

1

At Charlotte International Airport, people scurry, wait, stare out the window, and participate in a vague anxiety about the prospects of hurtling high above earth in a large metal pill. How many of these travelers understand the heavy spiritual significance of the choice to fly? How many, at this very moment, take this choice for granted?
Scott does not. He lounges in a seat positioned in Gate b-7. His Sony discman rests in the seat beside him. Sting is playing on the cd as Scott watches the display unfold: the couple parting, touching, kissing, her crying, him valiantly not; the elderly woman, alone, clutching a bag (too cumbersome to be comfortable) to her chest; children running circles around seated parents, who grin and bear the combined stress of children and impending flight.
His wavy black hair lies in strands around his ears and down his forehead. He wears a sweatshirt and nylon running pants from Reebok; his Nike running shoes are untied; a few books are strewn beneath his feet (as if he'll have the urge to read for pleasure.) Unlikely, he thinks. Human nature- always have a backup, even if for no apparent reason. The comfort of security.
The beep-beep-beep of the security car coming down the aisle between gates always rouses Scott from thought. He pushes stop on the discman, sits up, stretches. Behind him the cart for the physically challenged is passing.
" Scot-tay." It is Elvin, the baggage guy who often gets cart duty.
Scott raises a closed right fist in response. Elvin had once told him about his days in the Black Panthers, in the sixties, how he was a bad MF (Elvin now said MF instead of the complete version because he'd recently been saved), and that the gestures one used to greet people carried "importance beyond words."
The airport buzzes tonight. Scott stands, turning around to survey the busyness. People are hurrying down the carpeted aisle, eyes flicking from gate to gate. Others huddle in the fake Cheers theme bar, wearing too-colorful clothes, drinking five dollar beers and watching TV. In the food court area, the weary with long layovers gaze through the glass ceiling from wooden rocking chairs. It is always strangely bright in an airport: at night, the blinking lights from the runways gleam in through the wall of windows, mingle with the running lights aimed toward the ceiling that blend with the gaudy rainbow colors of the carpet. The combination of a Vegas casino and the hallway of a hospital, Scott guesses.
Scott walks to stretch his legs. He's sat in the same chair for an hour, since seven o'clock. The sun has begun to set over the west runways; gate b-7 has one of the best views. He walks up the ramp toward the food court, the smell of old leather and vague body odor catching his brief attention. A miracle of American capitalism: the food court area not only contains any genre of food, from Chinese to Greek to McDonalds, but nearby you can also buy anything that's leather, any style of tie, or your family genealogy from one of the the several vendor booths surrounding the court. Scott chuckles as he nears the spectacle. The urge has come once again: to purchase one of the over-priced items for no apparent reason. He thinks about his walk-in closet at home full of useless airport vendor items.
Tonight is a Chinese night. General Tso's chicken and an egg roll to be exact. Tonight is also a video rental night, even if it's Friday, which means nothing to him any longer. As he situates himself at the circular table in the middle of the food court, he thinks about when Friday did mean something: in high school, the end of the week blowouts; in college because the bar scene hit full swing. Now, Friday night means that every other Saturday he can sleep in.
He's an insurance guy: life, home, car, but specializing in long term disability and life. Eating chinese food in an airport once again exposes the patheticness of being in Insurance. When his father used to have golfing associates out to the house, they often would identify him to strangers as being "in Insurance." Scott remembers how foreign that description sounded. Like the quiet after a jet takes off, these moments of manufactured importance settle over him, a layer of dust, never really fading away.
------------------------
He never gets tired of watching people. They walk self-consciously or obliviously. The women labor along, pulling over-packed bags on a plastic cart. The men in suits pace in circles, talking into cell phones. The couples watch each other; for whether you are attending a reunion, embarking on a honeymoon, or simply visiting in-laws, flight has a way of focusing the choice that one has made to be with the other.
Across the marble-tiled aisle, a dark presence catches his eye. She wears black silk pants and a black leather coat. Her slender figure glides around the table, placing the two carry-bags on the floor beside her. She sits lightly in the plastic chair as she places the tray that holds a bagel sandwich on the table. Her sigh drifts to Scott like a whiff of perfume. To avoid staring, he glances sideways at her chin-line tightening, a smooth obsidian shelf extending from her throat. Her eyes, bright as white lava, the soft, reflected light from a diamond, dart to and from the bagel. Should she even eat it, she seems to ask? Her slender, cocoa fingers begin to tap on the table-top, the ruby-red fingernails producing a sharp sound.
Scott leans forward. "Trust your choice. You bought it." He smiles, with teeth. He rarely talks to "them," the strangers who come and go. Usually watching is enough. Observing. Wondering. Escaping for that brief fantasy diversion. This woman seems to belong to a different category than "them."
She doesn't respond immediately to his statement. The tapping has served as the hypnotic rhythm necessary to revisit the burden on her mind. She hears his voice, as if waking from a dream, sees his body lean forward from across the aisle, notices the glimmer of his smiling teeth.
"You are talking to me?" Her voice strikes Scott as that of a more feminine Whoopi Goldberg (which he realizes is a poor comparison because he hates Whoopi), one full of ancient passion and direct energy. The woman shifts slightly back in her chair. Her eyebrows raise to communicate the indignation deserving of this young white man in a nylon sweatsuit speaking to her while she tries to eat her dinner in solitude.
"Yes," Scott explains. "Many times the action of consuming what we have chosen serves as a floodgate, a portal, leading us to the answer that once seemed so cloudy, murky."
She stares at him. " Let me get you here: if I consume this bagel, then my choice will become clearer?"
"Ya," Scott returns.
"Like, I'll know then if I shoulda gotten chinese instead?" She gestures toward his tray.
Scott laughs, rubbing his hands together. "No, no. I mean that life choice, that dilemma you have." Scott smiles widely once again.
She shakes her head slowly from side to side, her eyebrows pinching together. " So, you know me, right? Been followin' me around. Investigating my diet? And because you watch me, you know what's on my mind? I'm gettin security." She rises from her chair, her head pivoting wildly around the food court area.
Scott whistles, and yells, " Tommy!!" He motions, and from the automatic walking pathway, a skinny black man waves, sauntering over. "What's up, Scotty?" The two men exchange handshakes. Scotty turns to the astounded young woman, saying," Tommy, I'd like you to meet...." He looks at her, inquiring.
"Michelle," she says, almost involuntarily.
They shake. Tommy then whispers in Scott's ear," Thanks man, but you know I'm faithful."
"NO," Scott proclaims, "that's not it." Scott motions to Michelle. "She requested to speak to security. Since you're the closest thing to it, I thought I'd be kind enough to introduce you." Tommy chuckles at this shared private jab.
With her hands on her hips, Michelle watches this with a sense of detachment. She stares at Scott, this stranger.
"What's the problem, miss?"
"You know this guy? " Michelle points an accusing finger at Scott.
"Sure," Tommy says," Scotty is as regular round here as many of the help."
Regular, she thinks. How bizarre. " So, he's harmless?"
" As long as I've known im, miss."
With this, she returns to her chair, shaking her head, muttering thank you in a whisper. She begins to unwrap the sandwich, aware that "Scott" has returned to his seat, and watches her. "What is your fascination with what I'm eating?" She glares at him, paper wrapper between her fingers.
" He's more of a perception than a reality, isn't he?" Scott smiles.
"He?" Michelle mumbles the word in the middle of a big bite of tuna.
" Are you flying to him or away from him? " He leans forward aggressively. When he sees the flicker of apprehension in her eyes, he leans back. " None of my business. I'm sorry for bothering you." He rises, gathers his discman and books, and attempts to throw his half-eaten Chinese entree into the trash.
She sits upright, and raises an index finger. "Wait. Wait a second." She watches him, paused in the process of discarding food. He doesn't look psychotic, a perception for which her aunt would accuse her of insanity. Ted Bundy was a fine lookin' man in a turtleneck sweater. The feeling has returned. Her stomach feels taut, but not tense, resembling the excitement of that moment just before the plane leaves the runway on takeoff. " Do you know me?" She asks in a hush.
Scott sets his tray and things back down onto the table. He sits slowly into the chair. " Of course not," he admits. " But I guess I'm experienced enough in observing young women like you in airports that I every so often get an instinct about someone based on body language, or the choice of a between-flight meal, or the passing glances at the script of a notebook. "
She eyes Scott with the glance familiar to too-persistent men in bars. "I've been raised around evangelists, so don't even think you're snowing me with prophet talk."
He chuckles. "Not prophet talk. Just acute observation."
Michelle, somehow feeling a level of comfort, takes a bite: " Why me?"
" You are the co-incidence of timing and situation: I'm eating; you're eating. I'm alone; you're alone. You're obviously searching for something; so am I. Many of the rest of these people are caught in energies that propel them away from me." He gestures across the expanse of people seated around the court, follows the passengers hurrying toward their flights. " So: to him or away from him? "
She looks at Scott like he's a childhood friend in the dark during a game of hide and seek: so familiar, but she can't identify his true shape. "What about you? What are you searching for in this airport?"
He ceases to smile. He glances around the food court, catching the eye of Lucinda, the mother of two in her thirties with the mystery husband. They exchange waves, and while in the process of returning change to a weary customer, Lucinda yells: "Are you flirting again, Scotty?" He rises, smiles like a choirboy at Michelle, and as he walks toward the Mrs. Fields cookie counter says, "member of my fan club."
------ -------- --------- -----------
He's dead on, of course. Michelle sits in awed silence, munching the remainder of her sandwich. She's running, flying away from New York for the weekend. Her grandmother's house in Jacksonville has always seemed a perfect haven: she gets her own bedroom, and the red carpet treatment. Grandma says its because Michelle is her favorite grandchild; she knows it is because she is the only one who ever visits. The beach will be so nice, she thinks. The warm breeze beats the noise of Manhattan any day. And Grandma will cook fried vegetables, sing motown classics in a rusty crooner's bass voice, and they will rock on the front porch in the wooden rockers Grandpa made the year he passed away. The spanish moss will take her away; she'll gaze into the darkness colored pale by the moon, and the waving of the spanish moss from the abiding oak trees along the lane will whisper magical things to her.....instead of remembering, she once again will inhabit the place where she can cease to exist as anything other than "Meesh," Grandma's nickname for her since infancy.
Of course she's running from him, or more like the possibilities of him. Michael B. DuBois, descendant of the famous W.E.B, has made the family's name proud. His foray into the investment business after his dis-satisfaction upon graduating from Columbia Law school has reached the next level. Michael, a handsome, sleek man of thirty, of good manners and stock, of security, epitomizes the pillar of confidence. His ambitions ascend to encompass every aspect of his life; like a pharoah he grabs a whip, and swats life's flies away from his golden cloak. This should thrill her. The prospect of settling down with such a man, one she admires and has come to know well over the span of five years, should entice her. Like a delicious taste intended to be swallowed slowly over the course of a lifetime, this man's proposal should be accepted, and appreciated.
She cannot. On her face must rest the countless blushes of her ambitions, her individual goals and selfish desires. She realizes that ever since Scott left to speak to the cookie lady, her fingers have been lightly touching her burning cheeks. This Scott has seen this side of her, almost "inside" of her. She recalls that this flight will be the first without Michael in over two years: trip to Europe, Disneyland, to San Diego for the Super Bowl. All of these stretch behind her now as returnables, as overpriced momentos that one outgrows. She rubs her neck, picking at the gold necklace she received for their second anniversary of dating. All of these emotions rush so suddenly: Why did he have to be so successful? Why propose to her now?
Scott leans on the counter talking to Lucinda, a casual glance over his shoulder every once in a while to remind Michelle of his direct hit. Noticing her mouth is half-open, she grabs a napkin and mops the corners of her lips. That's what really bothers her about the timing of the proposal. Michael proposed when his career had taken an upswing, and when her talk of going back to art design school began to intensify. She couldn't see that back in Manhattan among the leather furniture and scenic view from their shared apartment. His vision of their life now materializes as their vision of his ascending business and social life. The signs are all there : her life laying out in front of her organized by soaps and dinner parties, with the occasional sympathy for his rough day, and the periodic splashings together of predictable sex. That's too much for an independent woman to stomach, she concludes.
Crumbling her bagel wrapper, she rises, walks to the trash, tosses it in, gathers her things. Scott stands upright, tiring of the banal chit-chat with Lucinda the wonder-gossip. He watches her gather her things, and the brief flutter of anxiety caused by the image of her walking quickly away gives him pause. Instead, she walks toward him, the sound of her heels on the tile giving him reason to believe.
" Since you are a regular, " she says," then could you show me a way to kill an hour?" Her lips pinch, a harbinger to a smile or smirk.
"I guess," he replies, blushing as Lucinda hums the music to the Stones' "Brown Sugar,"and he hurries her toward the departure/arrival screens.
------- --------- ---------- ----
"So?" Scott looks sideways at her as they leave the food court and make their way across the hub of gates A,B, and C.
" If you must know: away from him." Michelle blushes, feeling a momentary sense of hilarity at the thought that he, this pale-skinned, red-cheeked man, cannot even tell that she blushes.
"It's none of my business. I'll use the info for nothing. Just feels interesting and alive to understand the truth of someone else's emotion, even if only a fragment."
They weave in and out of strollers and rushing faces. Night has fallen and seems to clarify the movements of all underneath the bright interior lights.
Michelle receives his comment as she might the declarations of the palm reader she went to as a teenager: with a mingling of reasonable skepticism and delicious wonder. " Isn't there someone who you can share this...this gift, I guess....with? "
"Gift?" He chortles at this. His face becomes serious, and at once, childish and innocent. "No," he adds.
They walk up to one of the huge computer screens labelled Departures. Michelle scans the board. Finding Jacksonville: gate b15 flight delayed. " Oh, that's just what I need," she miffs.
"Flight cancelled?" He searches the board.
"No, just delayed," she responds. " Guess I should head down there to check it out." She looks at him, who continues to watch the board, intense and with a strange smile on his face.
" If I tell you my destination and gate number to get you to stop looking at the board, you won't stalk me, and buy a seat on the flight, will you?"
"No," he whispers, and turns his head away.
"Come on," she says, tugging at his jacket sleeve, "let's see if I can get to Jacksonville some time tonight."
----- --------- -----------------
Scott gets that feeling again as Michelle wisks him down the carpeted ramp of gate B, that feeling of connection. Of human energy melting into a form that he can understand. It is a sensation he hasn't been used to over the last year. It warms him, makes him see a tint of blaring whiteness on the periphery of his vision. Perhaps two realms oozing together.....
" How old are you anyway? " Her voice quivers from the fast walking pace.
"23," Scott automatically responds.
"23, and so perceptive. That's a gift," she declares.
They pass the gates and the Edy's yogurt place, where he likes to eat a large cup full of malted milk ball yogurt. Next to Edy's is the Brooks bookstore. He looks to his left as they pass, imagining himself standing in the magazine racks, reading selected articles from all of his favorites, and hours later, Millie the night shifter rousing him with her standard, "Some of us have lives."
"What else do you know about me?" Her breathy question takes a moment to sink in for Scott. He shakes his head, unable to eradicate the white blurriness from his vision.
" He asked you to marry him, didn't he?" He looks straight ahead, pointing at the approaching b-15 gate.
She slows down. " You'll have to tell me what this is all about. Am I on Oprah, or somethin' ? Practical Jokes? "
"I can also tell you that your flight has been cancelled, and there won't be another until the morning."
" Now that one's nothin. You could just guess on that one. Fifty-fifty chance right?" She smiles deviously at him. He smiles and points to the black computer screen beneath the USAir sign: Flight 1111 to Jacksonville cancelled. No flights departing until 9:00am.
"Shit....." Michelle stands amazed. She finds a phone to call Grandma, who she hopes hasn't left yet for the airport cause she can barely figure out how to start the damn thing, much less get on a road and make turns. On the third ring, Grandma answers. Flight's been cancelled til morning, Meesh says. Good. Cause it's windy as a hurricane here, darlin', Grandma says. Next flight's 9:00am, Meesh says. Then I guess I won't see my lil' Meesh til the mornin', Grandma says. Luv ya.
For a few silent moments after replacing the phone receiver, she paces over to the window, and then back and forth, inspecting the taxi-ing planes. " I used to do that," he offers. "But now I'm content to observe only the people."
" Used to do what?" Michelle, still pissed that she will have to spend the night in some strange place, mutters this into the black window.
" I used to watch the planes, examine them as if they were responsible, at fault. I've come to conclude that they're not." He finishes this with a plop down into the padded, plastic seat directly in front of her.
" Well, who's fault is it then? " She mumbles as an afterthought.
" No fault. Flight makes no promises, offers no excuses."
She turns to look at him. He stares out the window with a bemused look on his face. Who are you again?
----- ----------- ---------------
What to do now, she thinks. Stuck in a smelly food court in a huge airport with a spittin' image of Ted Bundy. That's what happened to em girls. Lil' blonde lovelies. Ted flashed those pearlies, stroked his wavy black hair, and next thing they knew, they orgasms became spasms. Auntie has that poetic flair, Michelle thinks. Too bad she can't put it to any better use than occupying the position of town gossip hound, who highlights as the hairdresser. Fortunately, Michelle has seen a bit more of the various world than some of her kind and kin. She understands that every white male with good hair doesn't mysteriously become a gruesome serial rapist. This becomes comical when she sees Scott, situated across the same table from moments before, singing quietly to himself.
"What's that you're singing?"
"Harry Connick, It Had to be YOU...." He looks away.
" What time is it?" She asks, to keep from giggling in his face.
"8:15," he replies.
She gives him the twice over, smiling. She says, "What's wrong?" He straightens out his jacket, and sits self-consciously up in his chair.
" You're a good-lookin man with charm and wit, and a wisdom about you. What are you doing in the airport on Friday night? What does it mean that you're a regular?"
He looks at her without looking into her eye. He rings his hands. " Aw, I guess that means that I come here enough that the employees know my name. I'm kind of a novelty."
He leans forward. " I mean, forgive me if this is too personal, but shouldn't you be out with your beautiful girlfriend doing interesting things..?...." She throws her right hand in an arc across the table.
" This is interesting," he states.
She eyes him carefully. A sense of foreboding creeps. " So, you have interesting conversations with plane travelers every weekend? Different, random people? "
"No, it's not like that," he claims, scratching his head and crossing his legs. " I come to the airport when that feeling hits me....it's hard to explain." He scratches his neck. " Not every weekend. Weeknights some times. And I might go a month without visiting."
" Visiting?"
"Yes."
She pauses and cocks her head to one side. "Who do you visit?"
He stares away from here for a few long seconds. When he focuses his gaze on her face once again, Michelle feels a sharp chill flow across her back and tingle the back of her neck. He calmly replies: "Them." In his eyes, she sees a deepness, a conjuring up of almost every emotion to the point of no emotion. With this, he rises, and mumbles that he must use the restroom.
-------- --------- -------------
Michelle daydreams about her childhood: Grandma sitting on the worn-out front porch, rocking on uneven boards, humming a spiritual, as the wind sings in different cadences; and Michelle -- lying in the bed next to the porch, half-asleep, window open, curtain flapping gently with the wind, shadows sprayed around the room......
"You're in that place again," he says, jarring her from the reverie. "Good place this time though, huh?"
She nods, smile still spread across her face. "Good place," she repeats.
" So, have you thought about where you're gonna stay tonight?" He pulls his chair closer to her.
She sits upright. " My, you are good at changing the subject, aren't you?"
No answer; only a grin. She stretches, throwing her arms back, and yawns. "Ya, I guess I won't be able to stay here all night without any sleep. You have any suggestions?"
He sets his jaw and squints. "You're welcome to stay at my house."
She watches his lips say the words. For a moment, reality suspends. Auntie, with her hands on her hips and sporting her new red-streaked hair weave, pops into her head. You're welcome to get chopped up! "So this is how you try to pick up women? Now I understand about the girlfriend situation." She laughs and watches him suspiciously.
He looks to the carpeted floor, digging with his right toe. "It's not like that," he murmurs.
She studies him: What kinda man is this? I meet him less than an hour ago, and he's asking me to spend the night at his house. I guess I'd be lyin' if I said he wasn't interesting.
Scott continues: " I have extra bedrooms, and it's only twenty minutes drive from the airport. I thought that with it being a free place to stay, and us getting along and everything....."
"Okay," she interrupts. " For some unknown reason, your offer doesn't sound like a bad idea. Thank you for the offer. I accept." She pauses, sits up, smooths out her pants. Quickly, to herself: " No idea why I accept....."
Scott rises and spreads his right hand toward the aisle. " Shall we?"
Great, Michelle thinks, just like in the movies. Something in her jumps, though. She gathers herself before standing, pretending calm.
------- ---------- --------------
They drive away in Scott's four-year old Ford explorer. Company car, he casually explains. The rain begins to fall as soon as they reach the interstate, a hollow metal sound from above. Michelle comments that the rain must be part of the storm that has shut down flights into Jacksonville. Scott looks to his right, observes her calm expression as she looks out of the window, and murmurs agreement.
This person sitting in the passenger seat is unlike any her she has ever known. Michelle experiences the initial stages of disorientation often associated with jet lag, or culture shock. Or first surge of reality after a hasty decision. What a sheltered world I've lived in, she thinks. The rain increases, pelting the metal roof, making it difficult for her to see a hundred yards in front of the truck. Probably not difficult for him, she decides. Plaintive, Scott's face shows no signs of the anxiety that one might expect in one who has met a total stranger, and now takes her to his home. They make small talk, unaware of the nature of music coming from the country music station. What time do I get up? How long have you been in Insurance? Is it really cold in Manhattan in winter?
Fifteen miles later, east on the interstate, Scott turns right onto Highway 55. Rain has soaked the road enough that the usual potholes glisten in full patches under the headlights. The open spaces on either side of the interstate now become the encroaching walls of dense foliage and trees that hang limbs out above the road.
"Only a few more miles now," Scott says, smiling.
Michelle settles comfortably into the seat. "Tell me about your place. You haven't said anything about it."
Scott looks straight ahead. " The house is two story, five bedrooms, a large family area with a fireplace. It has a basement. We have thirty acres of land, too. And there's a fishing pond off of the back deck."
"We?" Michelle watches his face for any sign.
" My family," Scott explains, his face expressionless.
She begins to ask for an explanation of this, but pauses. Scott seems to be distant once again. She feels like asking him if he's in that place again, but unsure of his reaction, she lets it drop. The rain continues to pound off the pavement in front of the truck, sizzling in the glare of the headlights.
----- ----------- --- ----
The house is bigger than she expected. The gravel driveway has wound around a small woods that shields the house from the road. The house rests in a clearing surrounded on two sides by dense trees, and on a third by the pond. The fourth side looks like it is used for farming. This she's not sure about, since it is dark and rainy, and since she's lived in the city her entire life. Scott pulls onto the twenty foot concrete slab preceding the three car garage. To the right, in front of one set of woods, looms a basketball goal.
He lives with his family still? Interesting, she thinks. Hope we don't catch mom and pop in their robes watching Lawrence Welk. She chuckles.
" What's funny?" Scott pulls the truck into the garage, and turns off the ignition. He turns his head to look into her face.
"I can't believe that I'm doing this," she replies. She shakes her head, almost involuntarily.
"Well," Scott says, opening his door," it'll all be over by the morning, and then you'll be on your plane to see Grandma." He gets out, walks toward the door leading into the kitchen, and turns around. He smiles, not sarcastically or comically, but he smiles. Michelle watches him, notices his sincerity. She inhales, and opens her door.

Inside the kitchen, Michelle experiences the customary adjustment of one trying to anticipate what something will look like, and then finding that the picture doesn't fit the imagined scene. Like taking a gulp of orange juice when you expect water. She's struck by the smell: not a bad odor, just the unique smell that every house has when one first enters it. The kitchen is big, with a walk-around island in the middle with six stools surrounding it. Beyond the kitchen, a small, round, dining room table sits on the carpet connected to the large family room area. To her right, the family area contains a large, black leather couch and two,large maroon lazy-boy chairs. The carpet is a cream color, and feels plush around her shoes.
"Take your shoes off if you don't mind," Scott says.
That's all I'm takin' off. She does what he asks. She notices something missing from the room: the fireplace is big and beautiful; there are plants situated around the room; but, there is no TV set; no entertainment center at all. What kinda family wouldn't have an entertainment center?
" Do you watch TV in the basement?" Michelle eyes him innocently.
"NO," Scott replies. " There's a TV in my room." He waves her to follow him across the family room, past the huge, oak front door, and into what looks to her like the master bedroom. A king-sized bed rests in the center of the room against the right wall. A wooden armoir looms in front of the bed against the left wall. Scott walks into the bathroom, turns on the light. Michelle oohhs over the gold trimmings, and especially the jacuzzi tub. Scott leads her to the walk-in closet, and turns on the light. Among the hanging khakis and shirts and suits, and surrounding the dresser, lies the evidence of many trips to the airport.
" Oh my God," Michelle whispers. She walks into the closet, picking up a leather briefcase with the tag still on it. " You bought all of this stuff at the airport, and you never use it?"
Scott nods slowly.
Michelle watches him. His blush and smile increase. "Should I be frightened right now?"
Scott looks around the closet at the multiplicity of uselessness, and says, "Yes. Very." They laugh.

Back in the family room, Michelle sits down on the leather couch. She notices the pictures sitting on the table. She picks up a family photo: Scott, probably in high school, with what looks to be his parents and younger sister. Cute family, she thinks.
" Do you want a snack, something to go with the Diet coke?" Scott rummages in the kitchen, the clink of plates and thud of cabinet doors being shut. .
"No thanks," she replies absently. " Am I going to meet your family? I'm sure they'd be thrilled that you brought a strange black woman back to the family abode."
"My family died a year ago," he states as he hands Michelle the coke, and sits down beside her on the couch. " That was taken when I was 18, a senior in high school. Graduation, I think." He sips from his drink.
Michelle holds the frame in her fingers, which start to tremble. Auntie's voice creeps from some corner of her mind: He killed 'em girl. Run! Get up and run, ya damn fool chile! What are ya, ignernt?
Instead, she sits, stunned, questions racing through her mind. She looks at Scott, who is looking far away again. She looks at the faces of the people in the photo. Her urge is not to run, but to cry. She has suddenly entered the place where these people, now memories, once were alive and companions to this man.
Scott slumps down in the couch. He explains: " I was supposed to fly from Phoenix, where I'd just graduated from architecture school, to meet my parents and little sister here in Charlotte. We were on our way to a two week vacation in Europe, my graduation present. Well, El Nino didn't see it that way. You remember the beginning stages of those El Nino storms. They reeked havoc out west. Brought snow to southern California. Knocked out electricity in Colorado. Anyway, for one reason or another, my flight that afternoon was cancelled. And the next day, flights from Phoenix to the east coast were still cancelled.
We decided that my parents and sister should head on to New York, and to London, and that I'd meet them there when my flights could connect. The reservations Dad booked all over Europe were non-refundable, ya know, to save money, so it made sense that they go ahead without me.
I got into La Guardia late the next night, really looking forward to the trip. I hadn't seen my parents in so long." He pauses, rubbing his hands together. " I was in some bar waiting for my flight number to be called when it flashed on the screen: flight such and such has gone done in the northern Atlantic en route to London from New York. I'm sitting in an airport watching a news report about a plane crash with complete strangers surrounding me, and I'm thinking how awful for all those peoples' families, and then my stomach drops...... " Scott wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead. "I looked at the slip of paper in my bag to confirm what I already knew in my heart to be true; it was my family's flight. The newsman drolled on about no survivors, and I could hear the gasps and shock around the room from the frightened plane travelers, and once it hit me that they were gone, that they really were on that flight, I felt myself hovering above the ocean, about to fall, I guess hoping I'd land near enough to them when I fell. Ya know. It's crazy, but that's what I felt like when I first heard. After, I don't remember much else but being back here in bed wondering what the hell had just gone on."
Michelle has been crying for some time now. She has watched Scott so calmly tell about this tragedy, and her wide eyes now feel a burn. The tears cut beige streaks down her rosy, brown face.
Scott looks at her. He attempts to smile, to comfort her, to assure her that it is not her baggage to carry, but only information to be accepted and eventually forgotten. " I guess I just answered your question about the girlfriend situation. I had a girlfriend at the time of the crash. We were pretty serious. And she was understanding and sympathetic. But, it didn't work out. Not many girls are willing to understand some guy who "visits" the airport on weekend nights for fun. Too heavy."
Michelle sniffs. " I'm sorry," she whispers and turns her gaze away to look out the window toward the pond.
" No reason to be," Scott reassures. " I'm sorry for dragging you down." He rises, grabs his glass, walks around the couch. " Maybe I can show you something that'll lift you up, and also you can get acclimated to your bedroom for the evening." He walks into the kitchen, places the glass in sink.
Out in the family room, Michelle sits in a heap. Her thoughts race and her body sends chemical messages that she's not experienced for a long, long time. A man she has loved for years cannot even bring her to this level of emotion. She is being rash. A typical young woman. Caught in the moment. Overly empathetic. She has been put in a situation where her defenses are naturally down. Knowing that she over-exaggerates this strange sensation, she still cannot get over the certainty that this man is no imposter. He breaks the mold for first impressions. I will allow my guard to stay down, but remain cautious, she decides. You betta check yoself, girl. Shut it auntie!
" Wanna see the upstairs?" Scott stands to her right, beside the armrest of the couch. She sits up, wipes her face, straightens her pants. " Sure," she says.
"Can I take that?" He points to the glass of coke. She nods and stands. After putting the glass in the sink, he leads Michelle toward the front door and up the spiral staircase. Three bedrooms stretch across three sides of the house in a triangle. They are each decorated with distinct colors: one in feminine pastels (she assumes this was the sister's room), one in dark green and beige, and another in a neutral gray tone. The hallway wraps around the family area, giving the upstairs a balcony feel. Scott stops in the gray room. " I want to show you my project," he states. He turns on the lights, several bright lamps hanging from the ceiling, more than a usual room would have. Michelle shields her eyes. "You'll get used to the brightness. Just don't look directly up," he says.
Around the room are models of airplanes, but not the kind that little kids might make. Michelle realizes that there are two that look like commercial passenger jets on the left edge of the room, farthest away from the windows. Directly under the window, a stranger aircraft sits. It seems to be about five feet long and sits three feet off of the carpet. It rests on three plastic legs that are mounted into a glass case. Three swivel chairs surround the model. To the right is a small communications network: two Dell pc's, a laser printer, fax machine, and a few other computer-looking machines that Michelle cannot identify.
He stands aside, beaming. " This is a dream." He points to the model underneath the window. " I've been working on it for eight months now."
She walks closer to it. " It's an aircraft of some kind. What are these?"
" Solar panels," he states.
" And this?" She points to the underbelly at what appears to be a hollowed-out compartment beneath the plane.
"That, theoretically, is a wind collector. A plane's movement is affected more by wind than anything else, right? My theory is that if you can collect the wind in certain ways, than you can use it to increase the effeciency of the flight. A similar theory to solar panels collecting the sun's energy to increase the effeciency of propulsion. Right now, all just theories. " He scratches his head.
"Why three chairs?"
"Through the insurance business, my father met a few engineers from a nearby firm that consults with the Air Force and Navy about planes. They became clients, and then golfing buddies, and then like uncles. They come over a few nights a week and we discuss ways of making this reality."
" Sounds like they may be giving you military secrets?"
"No. Believe me, they're not that deep. And wouldn't want to be. Anyway, one day, people will fly solar powered jets aided by wind collectors, and they will be safer and less consuming of natural resources."
"So, how would this plane take off?"
"That's what's perplexing us now. We are of the mind that gas will still need to be used to propel the plane off of the ground, and maybe in landing, but what do I know. I'm just an Insurance guy."
"So you took over, huh?"
"Ya, I coulda sold out to Dad's partner, but there's so much money in insurance. The business is going well. So, I'll put up with it in order to fund my dreams."
He watches over the room, hands on hips. "What do you do?"
She's startled. She's become so caught up in Scott's life, learning about intimate details, that his interest in the details of hers shocks and flatters her. "Well, nothing really right now. I wanna go back to school. Art and design. I enjoy creating, too." She nods at this and smiles. She looks to her right, and notices that Scott has been watching her intensely. His eyes evoke a compassion that chills her.
"Will you paint something for me sometime?" His question is innocent, yet harbors the million innuendos that her heart has been lacking.
" Sure," she replies, and turns her gaze out the window.

They tour the rest of the house, stopping in the basement for a game of pool. Scott shows her to her room, the pastel-colored one in the middle of the second floor. He tidies up, sprays a lilac scented air freshener in the room, brings in a vase of dried flowers and sets it on the night stand. " My grandma says that the aroma of dried flowers settles over you in your sleep, and gives you sweet dreams, " he says.
Michelle bends down to smell them. She can't place the smell, but it reminds her of walking in woods in the fall up north, when everything seems to accept the coming sleep of winter, and rests. She yawns.
" I'd hope you'd be tired. It's already 1:00am," Scott says. He fidgets with his watch. " Sleep tight. I'll get you up at seven. If you need anything from the kitchen, feel free. The bathroom's right there. An unused toothbrush is in the cabinent. Good night." He turns toward the door.
" Ya know what," Michelle says, " I could just set an alarm in here and get myself up if you have an extra. In case you don't like getting up that early. "
Scott turns his face around, looking at the carpet. " I always get up early. And this room doesn't have an alarm clock in it anymore. I don't use em, personally. Night." He smiles, pulling the door closed.
"Wait," Michelle says. " What happens if you really have to be on time somewhere?"
Scott looks at her, and points to his right temple. " I just concentrate on the time I have to get up, map out how many hours are in between, roughly how many dreams I'll have, and repeat it to myself a few times before dozing, and it works 95 percent of the time."
" What about the five percent of the time?"
Scott jiggles the doorknob. "Even alarm clocks don't work every time. Good night." He smiles and shuts the door.
She stands, staring at the closed door. No alarm clocks in this room? I bet Teddy did fucked-up shit like that, girl. Better find somethin to barricade that door, and see that the window's open enough that you can jump. Broken leg's better than a broken face. Ya. Ya. Ya.... Jamika Cricket perched on my shoulder....Lotta good you're doin in my love life at home. I've never let go and just let something happen because it feels comfortable; that's changing right now.
She sits on the bed, hearing the rain fall, softer now, on the roof. The house is quiet. She wonders about a lonely man, about running away, about starting over, about life going along fine and then all-of-a-sudden peeling off like dried skin to leave you raw, and about the lonely feeling she experiences more and more lately: one that is intoxicating, infinite in its freedom, completely liberating.
She crawls beneath the covers and curls into a ball.
-------- ---------- ------------- --------
Scott rouses her by knocking softly at the door several times. She rolls over, arches her back, and reaches for the watch on the bedside table. 7:05am.
"Thought I'd let you sleep in a little," he says. "Breakfast?"
"Ya," she replies.
" It'll be ready whenever you get cleaned up," he adds, closing the door.
She showers quickly, still not feeling comfortable with the unfamiliar smells and confines of the house, towels off, looking out the window at the plowed field, rummages through her bag, dressing casually (Gram feels uncomfortable with her New York fashion), and by 7:30, joins Scott downstairs.
A flask of orange juice sits among platefuls of scrambled eggs, bacon, dry toast, and a bowl of assorted fruit. Michelle looks at Scott, who stands at the sink rinsing some dishes. He's sweaty, wearing drenched shorts and a loose tank-top. "Don't worry. I washed thoroughly before cooking the food," he says.
Wow, Michelle mouths. " So much activity, and before 8 am. Thank you."
" You're welcome. I felt like jogging this morning. Sometimes the urge hits me. As for breakfast, it isn't often that I get the opportunity to cook for more than one, so it was fun. Eat up!"
She sits as he serves helpings of eggs and bacon onto her plate. "Do you like coffee? "
"Sure, black please," she responds. She's overwhelmed. When was the last time Michael did something like this? Always eating out. Never enough time to "be."
" How'd you sleep?"
" Oh, fine. After I settled into that soft bed for a couple of minutes, I was out." She eats eggs and sips the coffee. " This is good. Thank you."
"You're welcome." Scott watches her eat. " You're in select company, sleeping in that room." He nods his head. Michelle raises her eyebrows, anticipating the news.
He adds: " Only grandma sleeps in that room. Could you feel the energy? "
"Energy?"
" Did you dream strange, wonderful, or bizarre things last night?"
She thinks for a moment. "Ya know, I can't remember. Hmmm." She stares into space, trying to recall.
" At least you slept well. Better eat up, we have to leave in ten minutes."
-------- -------- ------------
Michelle watches him as they turn onto Highway 55. "You gonna be late for work?"
He shakes his head, returning from a daze. " Work, what is it good for?"
"Say it again," she says, smiling, and sipping from the coffee mug.
"Work, what is it good for." His voice is softer this time, and it trails into a whisper on the word for. He smiles, a mischievious kid.
"If you want me to do the grunt right now," she says, adjusting in the seat, " then you've got another thing coming."
Scott giggles, and looks at her. She'll remember that look. The coffee mug warms her hands.
At the airport Scott refuses to wait at the car.
"I can take it from here," she complains.
"Nope," he replies, and grabs the bags from the back. He wheels toward the automatic doors, and pauses looking over his shoulder. " You coming?"
Ya, she thinks, I'm the one leaving, remember? She smiles, takes a step, and looks at Scott's feet moving toward the flight.
He stood there searching the windows of the plane after I boarded. Her mind tries to put it right--the image of Scott the stranger, searching the window seats, his face concentrated, body language stiff. How lonely he must be. And yer ripe for the pickin.
She pulls on her earlobs as the plane taxis to make her ears pop and fidgets in the too-small coach seat. Her attire is not acceptable; she didn't feel like rummaging through her bag so quickly back at Scott's. As the plane spins around to prepare for takeoff, she imagines Scott walking slowly back to the Explorer, stopping to look in the shops, getting a newspaper. And a parallel image appears to her: Scott standing at the window, staring out at the tarmac.

2
Ain't no time fa a man who don't make ya feel alive....Gram's words. Michelle ponders this for the entire flight to Jacksonville. Was Gram talking about Grandpa? She remembers Gram talking to her Momma years ago when that phrase came up. It made some impression on Momma; she decided not to get married a second time because of that conversation. Michelle came to know this later, as those who are immature about matters of the heart often do. So many walls for love to climb, she thinks. She smiles, noting how profound she's been recently. So many built-in obstacles: age, color, ambition. The plane hovers over Jacksonville as the pilot speaks overhead about the weather and such. She is pulling it all together.
Ain't no time for a man who doesn't make you feel alive. Do you hear that Michael? Far away, in your playroom of glass, wearing the Italian suit, while you figure the balance of the savings, here I am. What did I love about you? The security, right? The number one trap for young women-- the need for stability lures us into the relationships with the power guys, the money guys, the pharaohs. Am I alive with you or safe with you?
You can't be both, she decides. The beach has been her windy bean bag for over a week, and in that time, this one thing she has understood: you can't be alive and safe. Days on the beach have stretched into the boring state of wasted time filled with regret, fretting regret. Glimpses of some little girl have returned to her at times, moments of pure living, detached from the adult judgements, memories creeping around her as she tumbleweeds down the beach. The beaches are hers alone, the tourist season long over. Is it the burden of time or the weight of relationship that seems to hurry her? What is this ticking clock? Alive or safe? The wind through the guest bedroom window at night blows cold, but she keeps the window open. Four or five quilts cover her. Retreat, her child mind calls from some sealed womb. Why? her new mind asks, and continues to ask, as if her rising breath reminds her to search for the sake of searching.
At the door, Gram stands for minutes at a time, listening to Michelle's breathing. She hovers near her eternal child, watches the pile of her quilts rising from the bed, then shuffles into other lonely rooms to await her next revelation. The warm part of her that longs to tell Michelle to shut the window, lest she catch cold, drags somewhere behind her on the tail of an aching sigh.
The morning before her return to Manhattan, Meesh stands on the mildewed linoleum kitchen floor. Gram shuffles between stove and sink, making grits and brewing coffee. Another sunny day awaits; the smell of marsh and a hint of ocean breeze mixes through the open window above the sink. Meesh shivers as she holds a cup of coffee between her hands.
"Gram?"
"Ya, Meesh," Gram replies, putting dishes in the sink.
"Do you remember when you said that you shouldn't waste time on a man that isn't alive?"
Gram looks out the window. She wipes her hands on the towel tucked into her apron. "I said that?" She takes a deep breath. "Okay," she concludes.
" Were you talking about Grandpa?"
Gram looks toward Meesh, but far away. " Oh, darlin," she begins, as if from a rumble, " yer Granpa was a wonerful man. He made me a happy woman, as much as a man can."
As much as a man can....there's another one I'll have to remember.

3

Manhattan. Upper East Side. Her watch says 7:01. It said 7:01 ten seconds ago, and before that, it read 7:00. She has been packing up the remainder of her things, only to be interrupted by the almost suffocating fear that Michael will come home on time. 7:02, she says to herself in heavy breaths, carrying the box of picture frames over to the door where the already overwhelming stack for the movers rests. The movers will arrive at 8:00 the next morning; they will pack the belongings in a semi that will drive most of the day toward Jacksonville; she must be around in the morning to sign and to supervise (to be responsible).
As she stands by the window, watching the smoke rise over the East River, the cars inching along below, this thought tears her away from her watch: human beings can be like trapped animals, prepared to eat away a limb without a single hesitation. She chuckles through her anxiety at this; what a rationalization! The man she once professed undying love for, the partner in most of her precious life experiences, has been reduced to a bear. I guess that makes me the trap.
She once again looks at her watch (7:04) and decides that her mind must get busy, lest she lose it. The hanging clothes need to be boxed up; her phones disconnected; and it only would be right to clean the place one more time. Fear, she thinks. Fear and running are the only images that her mind will allow. Fear of what? For all the shared memories, the emotions driven deep within, fear looms giant in her heart. Why? her mind repeats. 7:07. He's not home yet; why would he want to be home for this? She ends it with him over dinner at some dark restaurant he loves to take her to, just before dessert. Too weak to face him in their home. Oh, it'd be so much easier if she could just pack the rest, cuddle up in bed, wake up, supervise, be responsible, and hail a cab to LaGuardia.
Why? And when did Michael the lover get erased from her mind, stifled in her heart?
No, she will do the stand-up thing: she will allow Michael to come home to their (his) apartment for her last night in New York. She will sleep on Evelyn's couch, and arrive at 7:50 in the morning, after he's gone to work. Michael the ghost.
------- ---------- ----------- --------- ------------
8:15 pm. Michael still isn't home. Michelle rushes now, a ticking time bomb flitting from room to room. She stares at objects, at places her mind tells her might contain personal stuff. She touches every surface. OK, ready to go, she says aloud. Her hand rests on the counter top, beneath it a pile of old mail. She scolds herself for forgetting to sift through it earlier, and thumbs through the pile. Bills, magazines, and a postcard. She takes the card away from the stack, backing away from the counter. Leaning against the refrigerator, she looks at a reproduction of STARRY NIGHT by Van Gogh, the blues, purples, and eerie soft yellow colors reminding her of that secret place of art, that land of pipe dreams. She absently flips the card over:
It's not often that angels cross my path in the airport; I assume it's not often that you spend the night in a stranger's home (for any reason). Why? you must be asking yourself. Why is this guy sending me a postcard? If I knew a way to decipher the Why? code, then I would write you a letter, rather than a postcard, and share my secret. There's so much that could be said in the remaining space; perhaps I should end with this: the "you" that I experienced for a twelve hour period, unaffected by expectation, spontaneous and vulnerable, has given the "me," affected by memories, haunted by ghosts, and frightened of new experiences, a joy that I cannot explain. "Be" well.
Scott.

She leans against the fridge, the card in her two hands. Scott. His name jumps at her, written in precise and minute penned letters. She must read this message again and again before she can even draw breath. So beautiful, her shaking hands tell her. Her sobs come from beyond tears, from the well of her memories, where all the emotions thrown down begin to rise. It's not often that angels cross my path reads the tiny block lettering, printed meticulously, as if the postcard were written one letter at time over a hundred years. 8:21 reads the watch through her blurry vision. How many times she's read the card, she'll never know. With her eyes closed, she comes to her senses, sitting slumped on the linoleum.
----------- ------------- ------------
Her excitement the following morning gives her the excuse to treat her love affair with the desired dismissal. Michael has been in the apartment, and has gone to work as she anticipated. The movers shuffle in and out as she sips her coffee and walks from window to window savoring her final views. She is only mildly disturbed by his note (I hope one day I'll understand what it is that you're doing; I do love you), which she realizes should horrify her. But it doesn't, she repeats softly to herself. Spilled milk and tears, she recites, and rummages through the fridge once more.
The card is in her purse. She gravitates to it, remembering that she should check her flight for the specific time. Leaving LaGuardia at 2:00pm. Good, plenty of time to get moved out. She skims the itinerary of the one-way flight: New York to Charlotte- Oh my god.....
She hasn't even thought about the layover between NYC and Gram's. Arrive Charlotte 3:45, leave for Jacksonville at 5:00. The thought of it amazes her. What if?
Yes, Why? and What if? and ....


4

She spends most of the flight to Charlotte imagining a plane composed solely of glass, with a metal undergirding housing a small engine and landing gear. Large tylon shades could be used to shield the sun. How hot does the sun feel at thirty thousand feet? Her mind races through countless scenarios of the future: conversations with Scott, breakfast in bed, a real house in a natural setting. Among these wishes lurks her rational mind, the one she's developed over years of stereotyping and conforming to who she should be. This mind points out the difficulty, the gray blur composed from black mixing with white. No job; no education in her field of passion. But now she's in an airplane, an impossible dream for a woman alone, and the impossible reclaims her thinking.
The card has rested in her lap since the plane began to taxi. The gold swirls of Van Gogh's starlight emanate, as if to invite her into the wintry setting in the card, to be lost and never found. The most spontaneous moment of her life surfaces once again- a night spent in a stranger's house. She remembers what Scott asked about sleeping in the room that night- Only Grandma sleeps in that room. Could you feel the energy? Did you have and strange, bizarre, or wonderful dreams?
Michelle drifts into the state that has determined her, the shift in state of mind necessary to cast the past away. "Be" well. Scott's conclusion speaks to her. Did she ever mention to Scott her criticisms of Michael's inability to just "be?" She recreates each moment in her mind from the food court to her flight leaving Charlotte the next morning- she can't place any such conversation. Could you feel the energy?
------- --------- ----------
The plane touches down, and Michelle isn't quite sure if she has slept, or if her daydreaming evolved into a trance. She becomes instantly awake, as if every thought counts. Dreams, bizarre, fragments of forgotten dreams pour into her mind in colors, the distant humming of the song that Scott was singing.
Girl, you hearing voices. Don't you have sense to know that's just how dem cereal killas think ?
She crawls from her cramped window seat to the aisle. Her head fills with the fog of near-waking as she ambles up the walkway toward the terminal. Here I am, in Charlotte....alone once again. Risk--that sense of complete helplessness. An energy pulling you along; an unconsciousness.
One hour to the flight. The thought that Scott sits somewhere in the airport, silent, staring at the large cinematic windows, comes to her. No way, she concedes. But it lingers like the answer the girl hears in her dreams, the answer that won't acknowledge any other. So silly; so rash; her skin begins to crawl as she notices her pace increasing. Tommy, she thinks. I'll find Tommy.
She sets her bags down in the food court. There's Lucinda, working the cookie counter. Her plan: track down Tommy, see if he's seen Scott, and.....it flashes in her mind- rent a car!
She walks to the middle of the concourses, searches the signs. Avis. She walks briskly down B concourse, rides the automated walkway, adjusts her dress....why am I wearing this jacket..the first beads of sweat forming on the small of her back.
She barely remembers putting her credit card down at Avis.
------------- ------------ ----------------
Is there automatic pilot on this bad boy? She drives too fast as she checks the features of the rental. The roads look slightly familiar, yet without the overcast sky, her memory doesn't match the unfolding view. She remembers the green 55 signs, and after a few miles on the bypass, she flips her right blinker. It's been silent for ten minutes. Michelle realizes this with the ping of the turn signal. Her hands feel light on the wheel, and look unusually pale. Her body, though, sinks in the cloth seat. Her hips settle and the anxiety she has held off for the past half hour begins to seep into her.
Big deal about the lost ticket; money's only money. Ya, but yo sappy heart writin checks that body can't cash, woman.....
Maybe Auntie speaks the wisdom; maybe this is the- white-boy's-whiter-on-the-other-side type of thinking. Who I am is not history; not a hairdresser's foolin'; and not Gram's escape. Who I am is this.
What's this? She breathes deeply and a hollow breeze seems to blows through her.
--------- ---------------- ----------------
She slows the car, sees the narrow gravel of his drive. No cars in the rearview; none approaching on the long straightaway of wavy concrete road. She edges forward, not yet wanting to look down the wooded path that eventually will commit her to the most foolish action she's ever undertaken. The engine hums, as she stares toward the opening in the woods, her peripheral vision noticing the swaying leaves. She turns the blinker on again and submits....the car lurches forward. Her life has been calculated; now she dives blindly. Consequence? Rebuke? This is not an all-or-nothing situation, she says aloud. The road winds; the rocks squeeze together beneath the tires.
4:32 the clock displays. What if he's in there right now, and hears me pull up? What if he got a killin' room above the garage?
The car breaks the dense cover of trees and she sees the expanse of the clearing. The drive winds back to the right, and the house comes into view. Different lighting from a month ago. The sun sprays across the pond, eventually to set beyond the house. No Explorer in the driveway. Her mouth cracks, a result of sleeping on the flight and missing the drink service. The breeze blows acorns across the white concrete in front of the garage. Michelle slows the car to a stop, and quickly turns the engine off.
She gets out. What is this called? Who will I be if he rejects me? If he freaks, wonders what the hell I'm doing here, then where am I? My flight leaves in about 15 minutes.....she climbs out of the car. The breeze is cooler than she ever imagined, the silence stifling.
She pulls off her flats and steps into the moist grass ankle-deep. What if I walk into those woods, lay down and let night fall? She steps across the field. When does it get easier? When.....
A car's tires on the gravel drive.
Oh no.
She bounds back toward the rental.
I don't have anything to give him.
She stands next to the car. Her face beets fire-red. She shivers.
Should I say Surprise and throw my arms up? Oh, please.....
Maybe ya should jump in the car, lock the damn door, and make a quick getaway.
Maybe you're right Auntie. Her heart sinks.
She opens her eyes as the front of the Explorer appears from the woods, the tires growling the gravel beneath. Two people are in the car! The thought pierces her mind like a bullet, then a hollow pause before the fear that sends her reeling toward the rental’s driver side. Two people are in the car.
What ya expect, dummy?
As fast as you can, as fast as you can, she hums to herself as she fumbles for the car key. The Explorer's engine revs as she sees it speed up out of the corner of her eye. She finally gets the key in the lock (yer not gonna be like some white gal, getting killed by the stalker cause ya can't even open a damn door, are ya?) and swings the door open--
"Michelle?" Scott's voice rouses her. She looks up quickly. The look on his face is one of horror. That's the way I should look. He leaves the door open and takes a step towards the rental.
She raises her hand, as if to stop him. Tears run.
"Are you okay?" His voice is soft. He takes a few more steps forward.
She looks at him, and then glances behind his left shoulder at the passenger side of the Explorer.
" No. I guess I feel --- random." She strains to see the face of the companion. Oh, that's right, you drive to his house unannounced, wait fa him to get home from work, and now you gettin jealous. You high maintenance if I eva seen it.
" Random?" He takes a few more steps toward her.
She steps back from the door in order to see who is getting out of the Explorer.
" Honey," she hears. The voice doesn't sound right. She looks to Scott, who wears that weird smile again.
" Honey, is that ya new cleanin gal?" Michelle leans to the left: an old woman, white hair, saggy skin, coming around the truck.
Scott chuckles, looking at Michelle’s face as it begins to register. "Naw, she's a friend, Grandma," he says over his shoulder.
Oh my god. Michelle grabs the open door of the rental to steady herself. The air has gone out of her. He grips her at the left elbow, leans close to her face. " You've seen better days. "
He sits her down in the seat of the car, puts his hands on her shoulders. " To what do I owe this surprise?"
"Well," she peers up at him. " I didn’t come here to do the laundry."
Might notta come here to do laundry, but ya gonna get hauled out in bags.